جميع فصول : الفصل -الفصل 106

(Daciana POV)The hidden girl’s warning held my wrist like an invisible chain, stopping my burned fingers above the cradle where Maelor’s innocent soul trembled.Inside the black feather cloth, a sleeping infant-shaped glow curled beside something darker, older, and crueler than any shadow child we had faced.The tiny heartbeat flickered once, weak and frightened, while the ancient darkness beside it breathed like a beast pretending to be asleep.I understood the trap with a clarity that made my stomach turn cold beneath my ribs.If I woke Maelor’s innocent soul, I might give Ashina back the child Blood Feather had stolen from her womb.If I woke the ancient spirit beside him, I might give Blood Feather the body it had waited generations to wear.Conri stood beside me with Finn in his arms, his sword lowered because this choice could not be solved by steel.Caelthorn growled behind us, half-merged and trembling, while every stolen wolf in the nursery watched the cradle like hunger had

(Ashina POV)The altar circle swallowed my blood, and pain opened through my body like every lie I had ever told had become a blade.I screamed Maelor’s name because it was the only clean thing left inside me, even after fear had made me dirty with betrayal.Red roots wrapped my arms, black feathers sliced my skin, and silver moonlight burned through my empty womb like judgment finally finding its door.The shadow child thrashed inside the space where my son should have been, furious that I had offered my life without asking permission.For years, I had begged for safety from powerful people, then punished Daciana because her existence reminded me that stolen power was never real protection.I had wanted Bardolph’s attention, Blackfang’s respect, Adolphus’s approval, and the sweet lie that becoming Luna would wash servant shame from my skin.But none of those things answered me when my son’s heartbeat stopped.Only his cry answered.Only his fear called me mother.Only the life I had

(Niall POV)The cracked Alpha ring burned around my finger, and I knew it was no longer asking me to obey anything.It was asking me to judge.That frightened me more than all the roots, shadows, screams, and old blood in the altar chamber, because judgment sounded like something adults used to hide cruelty.I was only a child.I had been chained beneath the altar, called little Alpha by monsters, and forced to choose between obedience and someone else’s pain.Yet the ring pulsed against my skin like it remembered every Blackfang wolf who had used bloodline as an excuse for hurting the weak.Bardolph knelt beside me, one arm around my shoulders, hollow without Caelthorn but steadier than before because guilt was no longer leading him.“You do not have to become cruel because the ring wants judgment,” he said, and his voice carried a warning made from his own ruined past.I looked at Lobo across the chamber, where he leaned against broken stone with blood on his mouth and hatred still